Sightsavers Ireland’s online workshop Put Us in the Picture won Not-for-Profit Website of the Year at Ireland’s National Digital Awards. The interactive workshop teaches schoolchildren about inclusive education and disability, helping them to learn what life is like in low income countries. Read about the award
Two of Sightsavers’ short films won awards at the fifth Charity Film Awards, which commend the best films in the sector. Our campaign film ‘A message from students in Sierra Leone’ won gold in its category and our film celebrating trachoma elimination in The Gambia won a bronze award. Read the story and watch our award-winning films
As part of a new partnership, Sightsavers gave International Disability Alliance (IDA) an unrestricted grant of US$1 million to help advance disability rights worldwide. The grant will enable IDA to increase its advocacy work, provide technical assistance and support people with disabilities.
Read about our work with IDA
On Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we shared tips on how to make social media posts accessible. Accessibility and inclusion are at the heart of our work, and we aim to make everything we produce in print and online accessible to as many people as possible.
Read our Instagram post for accessibility tips
At the Kigali Summit in Rwanda, Sightsavers’ CEO Caroline Harper pledged to invest US$25 million to help beat neglected tropical diseases in Africa over the next four years. The funding will help to protect millions of people from diseases like trachoma, river blindness and intestinal worms.
Read about the pledge
We launched a short film about corporate partnerships that shares how important corporate partners are to Sightsavers and how organisations and companies can support our work to protect sight, tackle neglected tropical diseases and fight for disability rights.
Find out more about our corporate partnerships
Lady Jean Wilson, who co-founded Sightsavers with her husband Sir John Wilson, celebrated her 100th birthday in August. Lady Jean and Sir John started Sightsavers in 1950 to help advance the rights of people with sight loss and remove the stigma around being blind in Africa.
How we celebrated on Instagram
Malawi celebrated the announcement that trachoma has been eliminated as a public health problem. Sightsavers helped to launch the Malawi Trachoma Elimination Programme in 2014. Now 9.5 million people in the country are no longer at risk of losing their sight to the disease.
Read the news story
Sightsavers director of neglected tropical diseases Simon Bush received a lifetime achievement award for his work to fight river blindness. Simon is the second person to receive the accolade, which was presented to him by the non-profit organisation United Front Against Riverblindness.
Read about Simon’s achievement
On 29 November, our generous supporters raised more than $85,000 during our Giving Tuesday appeal. Donations made on Giving Tuesday are matched and doubled so that individual gifts go twice as far, helping to treat many more schoolchildren like Zill, who featured in our appeal.
About the Giving Tuesday appeal
Sightsavers ended the year on another high by winning a Zero Project award for an inclusion project in Cameroon and Senegal. In collaboration with our partners, the project empowers people with disabilities in local governance and leadership by increasing access and participation.
More about the award
Sightsavers will host two events and two exhibition spaces at the event in Berlin on 2-3 April, calling on attendees to join us in targeting inequality.
We’re attending the conference in Chicago on 22-26 March to share Sightsavers’ expertise, engage with the education community and explore how we can help to transform inclusive education.
The IT Bridge Academy, which supports young people with disabilities to train for a career in IT, received the accolade from technology company Cisco.